


Incongruent

by MalaiseMasquerade



Category: Total Drama (Cartoon)
Genre: "I've reached my limit!" yells Brick. "Good DAY", Comfort headcanon!, Gender Dysphoria, I adore him, I also. am practicing posting stuff for when I get ytttd out, I know it's stupid but it?? makes me happy leave me alone, Other, This man deadass shaved his own head because he was sick of it, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, why? because I fucking said so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:14:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23654428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalaiseMasquerade/pseuds/MalaiseMasquerade
Summary: "He never did fit in with the crowd he was trying to. He also tended to see himself as two separate people -- the man that he knew that he was and the girl that everyone else saw him as. Beatrice McArthur never did understand why looking into the mirror made him feel so sick."Or: Brick is confused, always has been, and decides once he's a little less confused that maybe a different look will make him feel less nauseous about his own reflection.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Incongruent

**Author's Note:**

> This is ENTIRELY self indulgent. don't yell at me please i

He never did fit in with the crowd he was trying to.

He also tended to see himself as two separate people -- the man that he knew that he was and the girl that everyone else saw him as. Beatrice McArthur never did understand why looking into the mirror made him feel so sick.

It wasn't just mirrors, either. It was showering. He couldn't do a lot of things like use makeup or wear dresses or even play pretend "the right way" without feeling like something was _wrong._ Beatrice had a hard time making friends, and when he did, he could never actually keep them. If it wasn't the poor socializing skills pushing them away from him, it was his insistence to _always_ fit into the manlier roles, to side with the boys in stupid recess games, to say and write "he" in reference to himself no matter how much his teachers and parents insisted to do otherwise.

That's another thing -- his parents believed, wanted to believe, that he may have just been confused when learning pronouns at first, but he made the mistake with no other people. Every girl was a "she!!" except for their daughter. Truly, it was confusing to them.

And it was even _more_ confusing to their child, who wouldn't stop with the habit even as his parents convinced him to grow out of that way of speaking about himself. Outwardly, he would not say it, but on the inside, it would always be a nagging thought every time someone used "her" or "she."

_That isn't right. That doesn't feel right. That's wrong. That's the wrong word._

Beatrice never understood why he thought like that, but he did. And he never knew why he would _insist_ to himself that being a woman wasn't something he wanted, but he would insist all the same. It made him feel better -- if that makes sense, it warded off the sick feeling he always had when anyone would contradict him. Beatrice felt that it was all that was. It was a source of comfort, and it was nothing more than that. But even if he may not have wanted to be a girl, so to speak, it was going to happen at some point anyway, right? This must have been a phase, Beatrice figured. Yes. And once he really started getting older and developing and whatever, he would grow out of it and he'd finally be normal like his parents wanted him to be.

So Beatrice waited for the feelings of incongruity to fade. Years passed, each one seemingly slower than the one before it, and more and more seemed to happen as they did. Beatrice changed schools. He gained an interest in the military, wanting to be a part of a unit himself when he was old enough to enlist. He got a haircut, a bob, and started keeping it short. His mother threw her back out, and the length of recovery was far longer than any of them would care about. Her and her husband would bicker more and more often. Said husband left. Beatrice forced himself to believe that he'd come back one day.

There was so much to distract himself, yet the feeling of something being sick and wrong and not sensible would never go away.

As a matter of fact, it persists. Strongly. His body started.. changing as he got older, and everything would only feel worse and worse and _worse._

Beatrice didn't know what it was about it, but he wanted every change to _reverse_ before it affected him worse. He wanted to look like a guy, a _man,_ and it seemed as if every passing week, he would stray farther and farther from what he wanted. Beatrice was at a loss of understanding, and god, he was _so tired of not understanding._

But word goes around in the school hallways. People begin to question things. They talk, and he can't help but listen. He hears things about.. transitioning. Gender identity. Dysphoria. Explanations for things he's always felt and never _once_ knew anything about.

Bit by bit, Beatrice was able to finally piece together why he didn't feel right as a female, why he would always push it away, why he would deny what he assumed he had to be in favor of fitting in with men and doing what was expected of them more than his family really appreciated. He didn't just not feel like a girl. He.. he wasn't a girl at all, was he? He isn't sure if the revelation was more or less terrifying than being left in the dark his entire life.

But as he stands here, looking in the mirror, seeing his own incongruent reflection, he is relieved at the least that he may sort of understand. It would be a.. dangerous path to go down, let alone be anything easy to tell his mother, but at least he was prepared for what his future was going to look like now. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves, and found that it didn't help with calming him down at all. Beatrice glances down from the mirror at the counter; the sink, the hairbrush, and all the other dumb hair ties and stuff for styling that his mother used and that he had to use.

He sees that in the little basket with the brush and the ties lies a hair clipper.

As if on impulse, Beatrice reached to it and picked it up, holding the tool in his shaky hand. He didn't know why this was still here -- it was his father's. Maybe he just.. forgot it. Yeah. And he'd be back any day to come get it.

"..."

...

Why hasn't she thrown it out yet? Wouldn't Mom have gotten rid of it by now?

...he doesn't dwell on that for too long. But he glances between the clipper in his hands and the mirror. The clipper, the mirror, the clipper, his reflection, the clipper, his hair, the clipper. He doesn't want to do anything drastic that he would regret, but something is.. telling him that he won't regret this.

And as rational as he tends to be, the idea is.. tempting. Very tempting.

Beatrice debates it in his head, and it seems like what the fight really is is _not_ whether or not this was a good idea; it was over if he valued how his mother may look at him after this more than feeling comfortable in his own skin. _It might help to at least hinder how bad this feels for a while?_ is one of his questioned thoughts, but it is immediately deflected with _And what if it doesn't?_

_Would you rather let it get worse?_

_It ALWAYS gets worse. It's NEVER going to get better._

_You know you can't keep living in this image._

_What would your mother say?_

He stares down at the clipper, hands shaking. Beatrice.. he values what his mother thinks, greatly. And it's influenced a lot. But he.. he can't just hide this from her forever. And if he tells her, and she doesn't approve, he will at least have this. What could she do, _make_ his hair grow back?

"..." A nod, to himself, as if he is openly affirming his decision.

_Your mother is eventually going to know, anyway._

Beatrice moves the clipper up to his head.

* * *

For his first buzz cut, it doesn't look too bad. He sees himself in the mirror, and for _once,_ his reflection finally.. finally shows a glimpse of what he really feels that he is. He can't stop himself from smiling. It feels.. right, for once. Euphoric, even.

The euphoria is short-lived, though. He.. did that. He actually did that, and he's set on this. How is his mother going to react, he wonders? She'll have to know at one point, which is why he went through with it, but her response is something he truly cannot begin to predict. He's got no idea what her stance is on these sort of things. And.. and the path towards really getting to _be_ himself is going to be long and bumpy and too complicated for his liking.

There's.. still a lot of incongruity present in his image. But all of those bridges can be crossed when they get there. After all, he's making a name for himself.

And, frankly, Brick McArthur is tired of feeling incongruent.

**Author's Note:**

> Just to clarify to avoid confusion, the reason he's referred to by his pronouns the entire time but is called Beatrice through most of this is because while he's sort of.. vaguely understood that he was ftm his entire life, he hadn't really thought of a different name until the end of this so. sorry for potential confusion!  
> Again don't hurt me I'm ftm and I love Brick and I. comfort hc comfort hc comf


End file.
